


Target Earth

by reapertownusa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reapertownusa/pseuds/reapertownusa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Demons and angels are the least of their problems when a spell gone wrong leaves Sam, Dean, Charlie and Kevin at the helm of a starship on the frontlines of an intergalactic battle for earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Mostly through Season 8 with a dash from Slumber Party.
> 
> Author’s Note: This is a pinch hit for spn_reversebang. Story is set late Season 8 after Trial and Error. The amazing video prompt and gorgeous graphics were created by colls and can be found here: http://swannee.dreamwidth.org/107167.html
> 
> So many thanks to my heroes vyperdd and colls for their beta work!

Dean used to expect that he’d wake up somewhere else. As a kid, he’d curled up in a strange bed in a grungy motel room and imagine that he’d awake back in his own bed with Mom leaning over him. Sometimes when he was drunk enough, or just plain exhausted enough, he still lay on the edge of consciousness waiting for her hand to brush through his hair. 

When Sam had left him for Stanford, Dean had awoken the next morning expecting to see his brother lying on the bed beside him. In Purgatory, he’d slept propped up against a tree in a thicket beside Benny and woke up expecting to see Cas. The hope only ever lasted a single moment before his eyes focused and reality came crashing back down like it always did.

Today was no different. No one was standing over him. Cas was still gone, Sam was still the one earmarked for these damn trials and Dean was beginning to think this notion of shutting the gates of Hell was only a fairytale. 

He didn’t even know if it actually was a different day. Without windows, it was easy to lose track of time down here in the bunker. It was a far cry from the open spaces he was used to, but he didn’t mind it like he’d thought he would. They could pretend it was different. They could pretend it was safe. 

Dean rubbed the sleep from his eyes and blinked to clear his vision before glancing at his watch. Ten thirty in the morning. No wonder his back ached like a son of a bitch. He’d been asleep for more than six hours.

Dean sat up and threw his legs over the edge of the bed. He grabbed the whiskey from the table. It was empty, which explained the dull throbbing in his head. He set the bottle aside and stood, stretching his stiff spine. 

On the surface, things did feel different. He’d been waking up in the same bed for weeks. Every morning, he awoke expecting to find himself back in a dingy motel room yet, every time he opened his eyes, he was still here in his own bed. 

It should be a sign that things could change for the better, but he knew it was only a matter of time before it all went to hell. Underneath the smoke and mirrors of a clean mattress and a full kitchen he could call his own, nothing had changed. 

He’d still walk out to find Sam hunched over some arcane book. Beyond the bunker walls, the world was still one bad day away from self-annihilation and one of their heads was still on the chopping block. 

Dean wasn’t even fully awake before he headed out the bedroom door towards the shower room. If this place’s water pressure couldn’t drive the weariness from his bones then nothing could. 

He tugged off his dirty t-shirt and tossed it into the basket with his socks. His bare feet padded over the tiles. He unzipped his jeans and kicked them off. The corner of his lips quirked up when he saw that he had remembered to hang his robe back on the hook. 

He was happy here. As happy as he could be anywhere, but Sam wasn’t and something about that was seriously jacked. Sam said he saw some shiny pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Dean wasn’t sure what that treasure looked like for his brother. 

Dean had everything he wanted here and he knew the only light awaiting him at the end of this ride was hellfire. If Sam saw something else, something better, Dean wanted him to live long enough to find it. 

If Dean were the one signed up for these crap trials then everything would be fine. It was worth a shot, but the chances of it actually changing anything were so remote that it wasn’t worth risking Sam. He was starting to hope that Kevin never finished the damn translation. 

Steam rose up around him. Dean stepped in and let the pounding of the shower’s spray beat the tension from his shoulders. The white noise of the splattering water drowned out his thoughts while the moist heat eased the pounding in his skull. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes. 

Wishing wasn’t going to change anything and there wasn’t anything he could do right now aside from remember to pick up more shampoo. The bottle he’d propped upside down against the shower wall sputtered only air when he squeezed it. 

All that left was Sam’s girly ass shampoo. Dean could do without spending the day smelling like a sweet vanilla almond, whatever the hell that was. He’d die before admitting that he actually liked the silky conditioner in that crap, but he could never deny how much he loved that plush robe. It was the only thing that could convince him to shut off the shower. 

Wrapped in his robe and wearing his new favorite slippers, Dean stopped at the mirror and used his towel to swipe away the condensation. Shaving could wait for another day. He fussed with his hair for a few seconds before calling it good and heading for the kitchen. 

The coffee was already more than half gone. He poured a cup before shuffling out to the main hall. It wasn’t exactly a shock to find Sam surrounded by a stack of books with his head buried in one of the musty old things. 

Dean leaned against the table and stared at him. “You seriously haven’t gotten bored of reading yet?”

Sam jumped in his chair. “Dean. You’re awake.”

“And you’re a nerdy freak. Now that we’re past the obvious, how are you feeling?”

“Fine…” Sam’s brow creased when he focused on Dean. “You okay?”

“Am I okay? That’s the best diversion you can come up with? You really are a mess.”

“Seriously, Dean. I’m fine, but you look like crap.”

“What’re you talking about? I look awesome.” 

Dean raised his mug, toasting himself. Sam didn’t look convinced, but returned his attention to the book while Dean took a long sip of the lukewarm coffee. The bitter caffeine was just the kick he needed. 

He walked around to read over his brother’s shoulder. Sam seemed enthralled with the text, but it didn’t look any different than any other dusty book lying around here except that the text was too small for him to make out from where he stood. 

“Do I want to know what’s got you in research mode or is it just gonna put me back to sleep?” Dean squinted as he leaned in closer and realized it wasn’t only the size of the text that was making it impossible to read. “Is that even in English?”

“Some of it.” Sam guzzled down the last of his coffee before shutting the book. “I’m just cataloging these spell books.”

“Spell books? Should you even be reading those things? You might mumble some incantation and turn yourself into a chick…or more of a chick.”

“Uh…am I interrupting something?”

Dean shot back up to his full height when he heard the voice come from the stairs. He spun around, cursing when the coffee sloshed onto his hand and nearly splashed his robe. At least he wasn’t packing his gun or he might have just wasted Kevin. 

“Where the hell did you come from?” Dean asked. 

Kevin looked at him like he was nuts. “My room…”

The kid had been so quiet up there that Dean had forgotten that Sam had insisted on bringing Kevin here. Aside from having a giant target painted on his back, Kevin was damn near killing himself hanging alone in that freighter. 

Dean couldn’t argue that the kid was the only one who looked worse than either him or Sam. He just wasn’t sure why Sam thought Kevin would be any better off with them. It was hardly as if they were the shining examples of good, clean living. They had enough trouble keeping themselves alive. 

Dean grabbed a tissue to dry off the bottom of his cup before he set it on the table and shook the excess liquid from his hand. He froze with the wadded tissue dangling over the trash when he saw the bloody tissue already there. 

Before he could glare at Sam, he realized that Kevin was still staring at him. “What?”

“What are you wearing?” Kevin asked. 

Dean glanced down at his robe and crossed his arms over his chest. “Is it a crime for a man to be comfortable in his own home?”

“You look like Hugh Hefner.”

“I do not.” 

Dean looked to his brother for support, but Sam only shrugged. “Actually, Dean, you kind of do.”

“Shut up. My porn collection is way better.” Dean narrowed his eyes on Kevin. “How do you even know who Hugh Hefner is? You’re like twelve years old and were raised in a library.”

“Really? I’m eighteen and I was in advanced placement, not a monastery. Libraries do have internet.”

“Okay… So how’s the translating coming?”

The second to the last thing Dean wanted to hear about was the tablet. The only thing worse was the visual threatening to solidify in his head of Kevin and whatever the kid thought qualified for porn. 

“Slow.” Kevin rubbed his temples. “I’m still stuck on the second trial.”

“Good.” Dean cleared his throat when both Sam and Kevin gave him funny looks. “I mean, it’s good you’re taking a break. You’ve earned it.”

“I’ll take a break when I’m done.” Kevin walked on towards the kitchen. “I just came down for more coffee.” 

Dean waited for him to go before nodding in the direction Kevin had gone. “Aren’t you gonna talk to him?”

“About what?” Sam asked.

“Well, I thought you brought him here so he wouldn’t work himself to death.”

“You said it yourself, Dean. It’s not safe for him out there,” Sam said. “He’s better off here where we can watch, but we do need him to keep working so we can finish the trials and seal the gates of Hell.”

“So I can finish them.”

Sam sighed as he leaned back in his chair. “Dean, we’ve already talked about this.”

“No, you talked. I listened. Look, Sam, I know you’re stuck on this puppies and rainbows crap, but back here on planet Earth we got… What?”

Sam tilted his head as if he were listening to something, and it wasn’t Dean. “Did you hear that?”

“You trying to change the subject again? Yeah, I got that loud and clear.”

“No.” Sam was quiet again before he continued. “There are voices.”

“You’re hearing voices now? Super. Nothing like proving my point.” 

“Dean, shut up.”

“Dude, it’s probably just Kevin talking to one of his imaginary friends. Between you and me, that kid is a few fries short of a Happy Meal.”

Dean was going to leave it at that until he heard it too. They were hushed whispers like a television left on in the next room, but the closest television was in Sam’s room. Dean crept closer to the wall, listening. 

“That’s just great,” Dean said as he stood back up. “Some people got rats and we got fairies in the walls. I hate frickin’ fairies.”

“We don’t have fairies.”

“Says who? We got just about everything else lying around here.”

“Not helping, Dean.”

Sam continued pacing the wall while Dean returned to his coffee. He didn’t really think there were fairies in the walls. It probably wasn’t even a poltergeist. Kevin likely just flipped on a radio, but it was a fine enough distraction until it apparently drove Sam insane. 

Sam started with sliding aside books then boxes. Then he grabbed the end of one of the cabinet and tried to push that out of the way. Dean rushed forward to rescue his crystal decanter before Sam could slosh the bourbon onto the floor. He set it onto the table and turned back to see Sam looking at him expectantly.

“Are you going to help me with this?” Sam asked. 

Dean stared back at him. “Not until you tell me why you got the sudden urge to redecorate.”

“I think the sound is coming from behind this thing.”

“You sure it’s not in that thing?” Dean asked, suddenly rethinking his fairy theory. 

Dean still grabbed the other end of the cabinet before Sam scuffed the floor or threw out his back. He barely noticed the weight only because he was too distracted trying to keep his slippers from scooting off as he shuffled his feet backwards. 

He set the cabinet down when Sam did and walked around it to where his brother was crouching. There was a bronze speaker cover in the wall. Dean knelt down beside it. He’d been right about the radio and the reception sucked. The intermittent words were masked under heavy static. 

He was almost back to his feet when he started to make out some of the words. Most of the signal was too garbled, but he heard ‘army’ and ‘demon’ as clear as a good EVP. 

Dean hunkered back down beside his brother. Their shoulders brushed as they leaned together towards the speaker until Dean heard the words that made him rock back onto his heels. He didn’t hear what came before or after, but he heard enough. 

The gates have opened. 

Dean looked at Sam to verify that he’d heard what he had. Sam’s expression wore the same dread that was in the voices. With all the talk of demon armies, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what gates the voices were talking about.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean had given up on coffee and switched to whiskey by the time Charlie showed up. He’d also traded his robe for his regular attire even though he was pretty sure that Charlie would be on his side. 

They’d traced the speaker to an intercom system that was apparently tied into the world’s largest, and oldest, super computer. He stood in the doorway of the room. The air hummed and he didn’t need an EMF detector to pickup the electrical charge. The walls were lined with steel plates covered with flashing lights, buttons and knobs. 

Dean was sure at least one of those buttons was tied into a Cold War missile silo in the side of a mountain that could launch an arsenal of nukes to kick off World War III. It was safe to say that he was steering clear of touching anything. 

It all looked random to him, but Charlie seemed to be in geek heaven. She’d been glued to the floor behind the main console since she’d arrived a couple hours earlier. Now her laptop sat running on the main console and Kevin sat in a chair beside her. Their personalities might be polar opposites, but the kids were like two halves of the same brain. Sam sat across from them clicking away on his own computer. 

Sam wondered why Dean should be the one to carry out the trials. It was pretty damn obvious. He was standing around waiting for directions to the fight, wondering if he should go make sandwiches in the meantime, while the best and the brightest hacked away at a system that had been encrypted by a secret society. 

“Do we got anything?” Dean asked. 

“We got basically the coolest thing ever,” Charlie said. “I mean this thing’s so old you’d think it was just a giant calculator, but it’s crazy complex and the CPU is wicked.”

“What about the transmission?” Dean clarified. 

“Oh, that? No idea. We still can’t track the origin, but I can tell you one thing. It’s sure not coming from anywhere around here.”

“It still sounds like a bunch of static. Maybe it’s just some crap news station.”

Sam raised his brow as he looked up from his screen. “Why would a news station be talking about demon armies marching through the gates of Hell?”

“Slow news day? I don’t know.” Dean snapped his fingers. “Hey, you remember that stupid broadcast about the aliens?”

“War of the Worlds?” Sam asked.

“No. That late night radio show with the crackpot doctor talking about the implants in the alien abductees. We listened to it that one night and you didn’t sleep for a week.”

“I was seven.”

Dean snorted. “It was still hilarious.” 

The smile slipped from his lips when he remembered that Sam had been freaking out because his nose had been bleeding the next night. It had been residual damage from some dick kid that had punched Sam before Dean had found the little bastard out behind the arcade and nearly put him in the ground. 

Sam had come to him that night and showed him the bloody tissue like it was hard proof of probing aliens. Dean had laughed then, probably more than he should have. He never would have guessed there’d be a day when he’d want Sam to tell him about a bloody nose rather than trying to bury it in the trash. 

“Did you have a point, Dean?”

“Huh?” Dean scrubbed his hand over his face. “Oh, yeah. The point is, you thought that stupid talk show was real. Maybe this thing just tuned into some show for former demon abductees.”

“Demon abductees anonymous? That’s your theory?”

“You got a better one? I’m all ears. Come on, if the demons were flooding in we’d be knee deep in demonic omens. So far the skies are clear. This isn’t exactly ringing of a demon apocalypse.” 

“It’s no radio station,” Charlie said. “We’ve already eliminated all frequencies of FM, AM… Whatever this is, it’s got some serious kick. If I didn’t know better, I’d say these were closer to gamma rays than radio waves, but that’s just crazy talk.” 

“I hate to burst the Mr. Wizard bubble, but are we sure this is even science?” Dean walked the rest of the way into the room and stared down at the console. “As near as anyone can tell, this thing’s running on magic, right? Maybe it’s receiving it, too.”

The geeks, who apparently now all shared one super brain, looked between each other. Charlie tipped her head and glanced up at the ceiling before scrolling back through the windows on her computer.

“It could explain the unknown frequency.” Charlie grinned and bounced in her chair. “You really think we might be picking up messages from the fairy realm?”

“And we’re back to fairies. Holy crap. Okay, how about you guys just give me a call when you got something that doesn’t involve the little people.”

“Sure. Whatever, but you can’t just go teasing a girl with fairies.” Charlie’s attention had already drifted back to the computer. “It’s still running through the frequencies. We’ve got at least an hour of computing here so you got time to go grab a nap.”

“Do I look like I take naps?” Dean asked. 

“I’m seriously starting to wonder if any of you even sleep. You all look like the living dead just…well, you know, with pulses and not so icky. So what’s up? I don’t suppose you’ve all just been staying up for epic D&D battles?”

“Something like that,” Dean said. “Sam’s been hunting hellhounds and Kevin’s been busting his ass translating the word of God.”

“Cool beans. In a totally freaky sort of way. And what’s your excuse?”

“Me? I’ve just been sitting on my ass.”

Charlie laughed. “Yeah, and I’m Lady Galadriel.” 

“Look at these frequencies,” Kevin said. “I don’t think all that background noise is coming from the same source.”

“No way, but no big. At 160GHz we could just be picking up ambient microwaves from the creation of the universe and at… Snapes on a plane…” Charlie jerked forward in her chair, pressing close to the screen. “How is this thing even registering those frequencies? Those are like cosmic rays.”

“Yeah, but not those ones. Look at the signal fragmentation here,” Kevin said as he pointed at the screen. “And here.”

Charlie hopped out of her chair. “How did I not see that?”

“Whatever it is, can I get the Cliff Notes in English?” Dean asked.

“The computer is still sorting through the bandwidth, but part of our reception problem is that we’re picking up a whole mess of signals that are all dumping into the same channel. If we tune to the strongest…”

Charlie reached over the console to start turning dials. The jumbled static again poured through the speakers, fading in and out as Charlie tweaked the controls. She stopped when the static cleared. The message was still intermittent, but the voice was crisp. 

“…horizon. Beta Station? This is…of Letters home base… We must seal…first gate… inter…with demons have taken Alpha Stat… Do you copy? Beta…”

The message continued much the same, but Dean didn’t hear it. His attention shifted to Sam. His brother’s browser windows were split between the National Weather Service and CNN sites. Both were still quiet, and the computer sat forgotten while Sam looked lost in thought. 

“Are we Beta Station?” Dean asked. 

“I thought you guys were supposed to be the last Men of Letters,” Charlie said. 

“We are.” Dean rested against the console, jumping back upright when a button he brushed against beeped. “Damn it. I mean, were supposed to be. Henry was sure the others were gone, right?”

Sam nodded. “As far as he knew, but after all this time… I don’t know. It could be a trap?”

“Who else even knows about the Men of Letters? We put Abaddon down and how many demons do we know who can put out signals like these? Awful damn lot of work when you don’t know if anyone’s even gonna be listening.” 

“Can you send a message back?” Sam asked Charlie.

“On these frequencies? With enough time… Sure? I mean, if the system is equipped to transmit at those wavelength it’s possible. It’s just that until we know where the signal is coming from and what it actually is it’d be like shouting at Jupiter in Klingon and hoping someone could hear and understand you.” 

Charlie rocked back in her chair before popping back up. “Don’t get me wrong, I totally accept the challenge. It’s just gonna take some time.”

“Like an hour?” Dean asked. 

“Uh, like days.” Charlie cringed. “Maybe a day? Or two. How’s the coffee? Of course this is all assuming they even built this thing to transmit and that it still can and… I’m gonna get started now.”

“I might have something else we can use,” Sam said. 

Dean quirked his brow. “Like the power of love or something that’s actually gonna work?”

“It’s a location spell.”

“And what exactly are we locating?”

“It might be a stretch, but in those books they were talking about a location spell that worked with almost anything,” Sam said. “They’d even tried it with phone calls and apparently it worked.”

“So we’re talking 1950s cell phone tracking technology?” 

“Probably more like 1450s, but that’s the basic idea.”

“Well, it’s worth a shot.” Dean steered Sam towards the door before glancing back at Charlie and Kevin. “You kids keep rocking the Commodore. Merlin and I’ll be upstairs if you figure this thing out.”

“No threat of that happening anytime soon,” Charlie grumbled. She slumped with her elbows on her knees and her hands supporting her chin while she twirled impatiently in the chair. “I don’t think this thing could compute any slower if it was programmed to.”

“Hey, you’re doing great,” Dean said. “Both of you. We’ll figure this out, okay?”

Dean caught up with Sam part way down the hall. They walked up the stairs in silence. Dean glanced back over his shoulder when they reached the main hall. He listened to the scattered words still coming from the speaker before his attention settled on Sam. 

“You realize if they’re already coming in…”

“It’s already too late.” Sam raked his hand through his bangs. He looked far too contemplative for Dean’s liking as he scanned the hall around them. “We could just turn it off.” 

Dean followed Sam’s gaze to the speaker in the wall. “The radio? What good would that do?”

“We could wait it out. Let someone else take this one.”

“And just sit here with our thumbs up our asses until the demon apocalypse blows over? You already tried that one and look where it got us. If it’s war out there then we’re in it.”

“Why?” Sam asked. “Why’s it always our fight?”

“Because it’s what we do.”

It was the first coherent statement that came to mind, and it was true. Aside from Sam, fighting evil sons of bitches was what Dean lived for. But it wasn’t just that. This was on them. On him. 

“Dean, you said it yourself. It’s probably too late already.” 

“Yeah, story of our lives. Come on, we’re not gonna Terminator 3 our way through this one.”

“Maybe when Kevin finishes translating the tablet we’ll have something we can work with, but right now, without Castiel, we can’t do anything more than any other hunter out there.”

“I’m not waiting around here for Kevin to blow a gasket. Besides, I only got enough pie to make it another two days.”

The signals faded in and out while Charlie and Kevin must have been fussing with the tuner. When they settled on the next clear channel pained cries and desperate pleas for help spilled from the wall. Dean’s chest tightened. They should be wherever those people were doing their damnedest to stop it.

Dean pointed at the speaker. “Those people are dying right now. Let’s do this damn hoodoo already.” 

“I don’t get it, Dean. You say you don’t want me to do these trials and then you want to run blind into a fight you know we can’t win.”

Dean bit his lip as he listened to a final scream tear over the speaker until all that remained was an empty buzzing hum. He didn’t want to run Sam into a kamikaze battle. He wanted to make sure there was a world for Sam to live in, to have his family in, and live his boring as hell life in until he was inching around in a walker. 

Dean wanted to fight that fight for the people who didn’t know a devil’s trap from a pentacle and shouldn’t have to. He’d used to think Sam wanted that, too, but he didn’t know anymore. 

“I get it, Sam. I do. All we ever do is lose and it sucks ass, but I can’t not try. So, yeah, I’m going. You can stay here if you want. Hell, I wish you would.”

“You know I’m not letting you go alone. Dean, that’s suicide.”

“I’ve died for a hell of a lot less. Let’s at least figure out where this crap storm is going down. North to South America I win. Any continent that requires flying you win. Deal?”

“Seriously, Dean? You’re fine with dying fighting demon armies, but not flying to get there?”

“Hey, you’re the one with cold feet. I figure I’ve screwed up this country more than most. Fair is fair. So how’s this hocus pocus work?” 

Sam shook his head, but leaned over the table, flipping through the pages of the book he’d been reading through this morning. “I think it’s something like remote viewing. It seems pretty straightforward. You draw out this symbol, concentrate on a target location and then you know where it is.”

“Know how?”

“Uh…just know. It doesn’t really specify.”

“More psychic woo-woo crap? Awesome.”

“I know it sounds sketchy, but according to the journals this is the most efficient and accurate location spell the Men of Letters found.”

“Okay. Well, let’s get this show on the road. We drawing in blood?”

“Yeah, I got…”

Before Sam could reach for his knife, Dean pulled out the demon blade and rolled up his sleeve. He wasn’t about to let Sam jump head first into yet another mystical unknown. Dean clenched his teeth as he drew the blade over his forearm, ignoring Sam’s disapproving look. 

Sam lifted the book so he could better read the tiny words. Dean leaned into him to take a look at the symbol on the yellowed pages. It was simple enough. He swiped his fingers over the blood that dripped down his arm and drew the lines out on the table in front of them. 

“So just focus on the buzzing?” Dean asked.

“That should do it.”

He let Sam do the reading only because he still wasn’t sure what language that book was even written in. It wouldn’t do much good if he ordered a pizza while they were supposed to be locating an open hell gate. 

Dean didn’t recognize the words spoken aloud anymore than he did written, but did his best to focusing on the pulsing hum of the signal. It was easy enough to remember the screams that had drowned it out only minutes earlier. He heard them and the people they couldn’t save right before the floor dropped out from beneath him.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean’s knees hit the ground hard. He collapsed, smacking the back of his skull against the wall. He was pretty sure it was a wall or maybe a frying pan. He couldn’t focus. Every nerve in his body felt electrified. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation, the feeling of falling that left him on the verge of nausea. 

“Damn it, Cas,” Dean grumbled. “A little warning would be nice.” 

“Hey, you okay?”

He blinked and found himself staring up into the worried eyes of his brother. Sam bent down and clasped Dean’s hand, giving him leverage to find his footing. His brow furrowed when everything caught up with him. 

At first, he was pretty sure the impact had scrambled his memory, but his sleeve was still rolled up, his arm still seeped blood and the knife lay on the floor at his feet. Sam still held the book and it all fit aside from the fact that Dean had no clue where they were. 

“What the hell did you just do, Sabrina?”

“I guess the spell was more powerful than we thought,” Sam said.

“We didn’t think anything, and I still don’t know where they are.” Dean rubbed the back of his aching skull. “I don’t even know where we are.”

The furnishings were familiar. They stood in a windowless room with the same ‘50s style decor that they’d found throughout the bunker. There was a polished wood conference table surrounded by chairs and lit with the same tabletop lamps they had in the main hall. 

Dean looked up expecting to see a hole in the floor above them, but the ceiling was intact and looked like it was constructed from steel beams and braces that he hadn’t seen anywhere else in the bunker. Near the door marked ‘Authorized Personnel Only’, there were two flag stands. One displayed the American flag and the other a blue flag. 

Sam headed for the door while Dean bent down to retrieve his knife. He bumped into a chair. It had looked wooden, but had a hollow thump like plastic and didn’t move when he pushed it. Dean followed one of the legs down and ran his fingers over the bolts that secured the chair to the floor. Even the table was fastened down. 

“What the…? Sam.”

Dean stood back to his full height, clutching the hilt of the blade in his hand. He walked around to the army boots he’d caught a glimpse of from behind the table. A man lay sprawled out on the floor in a pool of blood. His body was shredded and his jugular had been ripped out. 

“Vampire?” Sam asked.

“It’d be the nastiest vamp kill I’ve ever seen.”

Dean grimaced at the sight, but not the smell. There wasn’t any. He lifted the man’s hand. It was still pliable. Still warm. 

“Damn it,” Dean hissed. 

There was no doubt in his mind that this was the last man he’d heard scream. It wasn’t until he moved past the frustration of not having made it in time that he came to the realization that anyone being here was impossible. There was no way this guy, and whatever had killed him, had been running around the bunker without them knowing. Not that Dean even knew what part of the bunker they were in. 

“What is he wearing?” Sam asked. 

“Come on, seriously? The dude’s dead and you’re still gonna Project Runway him? When did everyone around here become a fashion critic?” 

“When did you start watching Project Runway?”

“Shut up.”

Dean turned away from Sam to see what the man was wearing. Beneath the oozing blood was the tattered fabric of something that looked like it had been a vintage WWII khaki uniform. Over the breast pocket was a blue patch. He crouched back down and tried to make out the formerly white threads that were now stained crimson. 

According to the patch, the man had been Commander Ashworth. Dean looked up at Sam when he finally figured out where he recognized the symbol from. 

“Looks like the commander here was with the Men of Letters.” 

Sam returned to the blue flag he’d been playing with and held it out straight for Dean to see. It had a couple of branches wrapped around a circle surrounding the world with the Men of Letters symbol in the center. 

“These guys were Men of Letters for the United Federation of Planets?” Dean asked.

“What’re you talking about?” Sam pulled the flag back to take another look. “Dean, that’s the crest for the United Nations.”

“Well, they stole it from Star Trek.” 

Sam shook his head and released the flag. “Something’s not right here.”

“You think?”

The place was quiet aside from the same constant, pulsing hum Dean had heard over the speaker. He’d thought they’d been listening to interference, but now he could clearly hear the steady rhythm. It sounded like a massive engine and he could feel the subtle vibration of the floor beneath his feet. 

Dean turned a glare on Sam. “If you zapped us onto a plane again, I’m gonna frickin’ kill you.”

“I didn’t put us on a plane the first time and we’re not on one now. Even if we were moving, this would have to be more like an aircraft carrier to have a room this size.”

“Super. That’s just what I need right now. A whole damn fleet of planes.”

“Dean, relax. We’re obviously still in the bunker. Maybe we just found the energy source that’s been running this place.”

“Yeah, okay. But that still doesn’t explain why we’re parked next to a nuclear reactor with a dead dude that isn’t supposed to exist.”

Sam dropped the book down onto the table and flipped through the pages. Dean rolled down his sleeve, tapping his foot impatiently against the floor that also sounded hollower than he remembered. 

“I thought some of these passages were figurative,” Sam said. “But I suppose if they were read literally, this could be a teleportation spell.”

“You ‘suppose’? Dude, there’s a big frickin’ difference between remote viewing and popping up somewhere. No offense, but you’re not exactly Cas. There’s no way we could pull that kind of juice just by mumbling some random gibberish.”

“We draw symbols in blood to banish angels. It’s not exactly far fetched that the right one could transport us or him,” Sam said with a nod towards the body.

“Well, I guess whatever continent we’re on, we’re in this.”

A heavy clattering echoed from the hall. Sam closed the book and traded it for a gun. Dean cursed himself for not having his own gun with him. Given how warm that body still was, whatever had made the kill couldn’t be far away. 

Dean put away the demon knife and pulled out the small machete he had on his belt. He raised it and nodded to Sam, motioning that he’d meet him on the other side of the table. They slipped through the door and walked side by side as they stepped out into the corridor. 

On the wall outside the office, was a cork board with announcements pinned to it and blood smeared on the green drab wall beneath. No body lay on the ground. Instead, it almost looked as if the two thick, parallel lines had been intentionally drawn there.

They past what looked like offices as they followed the hall past several more bodies. One was dressed like the commander while a couple of others wore uniforms that looked more like the flight suits of the early test pilots. When they reached the second corner, Dean heard shuffling and the sick wet tearing of muscle and flesh. He kept his back to the wall and crept quietly forward. 

Sam nodded, pressing tight to the wall across from him as Dean peered around the corner. There was another body twitching on the floor. It wasn’t muscle spasms moving it. Someone was straddling the corpse. 

The ugly bastard looked over its shoulder. It wore a similar uniform to the commander, but its brow was twisted. The thing barred a mouth filled with sharpened, bloody teeth before it leapt from the body and surged towards them.

***

Kevin tried to scramble to his feet and landed back on the ground. He pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his forehead against them as he struggled to choke down the acid rising in the back of his throat. He’d always hated rides at the fair, but disorientation was something he’d gotten used to. 

It only took a few hours of reading the tablet before the pressure in his head became so extreme that his vision began to black out and it felt as if his eyes were going to push out of his skull. He was also getting used to finding himself on the floor. He didn’t usually remember how he ended up there, but generally knew where he was once the explosions in his head quieted. 

Panic tightened his throat. His gaze darted around the empty hallway. His pulse raced faster with every second that familiarity didn’t set in. 

He fumbled for his pack, which lay half open beside him with the strap still looped around his arm. His hand reached inside and brushed against an open pill bottle. 

He’d gone up to his room for pain meds to try to quell the splitting migraine. There’d been screaming. People had been dying. He hated that he knew what that sounded like. He’d never even liked watching violent movies. 

Enough of the past fell into place that he could focus on the present. He used the wall to brace himself as he stood. The last thing he remembered was picking up his bag from beside the bed, but he wasn’t in his room anymore. 

Kevin hunkered down when he heard the echo of footsteps marching down the hall. He was momentarily torn between calling out for the Winchesters or finding some place to hide. He turned and walked quickly away from the sound, moving as quietly as he could. 

He’d been on the run long enough to know that the only one who could really save him was himself. Sam and Dean meant well, but they were just two guys with their own problems. Worse, they were probably dead. They might be rough around the edges, but if either of them had found him, they wouldn’t have dropped him off and left him alone in a dark hallway. 

When he rushed around the corner, he nearly tripped over a body. He stumbled and threw his hand over his mouth to stop himself from making a sound. His gut twisted at the pool of blood that spread out over the floor. He avoided looking at anything other than the face and did that only to confirm that it wasn’t Sam, Dean or Charlie. 

It was still too much to see the pale face with the man’s expression twisted in horror. Kevin knew that was probably how he would look when he died, but not today. 

He focused back in on the hallway in front of him, startling back when he saw the silhouette of a man standing at the far end. The man stepped out of the shadows enough that Kevin could see that he was wearing a suit. 

He’d used to like suits. He’d imagined that he’d wear one someday, but he no longer had any delusions of seeing Princeton from the inside. Crowley’s demons were the only men in suits he’d seen since the Leviathans. He wasn’t surprised when the eyes of the man in front of him flashed to tar black. 

A cold smile curled the demon’s lips. Kevin listened to determine how far away the other demons were then turned to run back the way he’d come. He skittered around the corner, digging into his bag as his feet flew down the hall. His footfall sounded like thunder against the hollow metal floor. 

His lungs burned as he sprinted for the first door he saw. It was a dead end at a fork in the hall. He reached to open it, but there was no doorknob. It slid open in front of him like an elevator door even though a whole room waited on the other side. 

He only had a second to decide whether or not he was running straight into a trap. It didn’t look like anyone was inside, which was better than the situation in the hall. He ran back to where the other hall split off and heaved the pill bottle as far as he could down it. It hit the wall with a noisy clatter. 

He crept back through the door, which slid closed again behind him. There was no lock that he could find. He had to hope that it was only motion sensitive and not being controlled by someone else. He was also going to have to work fast. 

Kevin threw his pack down onto the table and started pulling out packets. He couldn’t hear anyone out in the hallway through the heavy doors. He still couldn’t focus on much aside from the fact that they were out there. His hands were unsteady as he emptied the ingredients into the bowl. 

It hadn’t been easy getting everything together for his own portable demon bomb, but he’d known he’d need it sooner or later. He hadn’t unpacked his bag at the bunker and had no intention of doing anything aside from keeping it stocked with everything he needed to stop demons. 

He double checked the ingredients and pulled out a match. He forced himself to breathe enough to return oxygen to his starved lungs before he passed out. 

Once he fought through the lightheadedness, he moved back towards the door. He stayed close to the wall beside it like he’d seen Sam and Dean do. It took a few tries to figure out how close he had to get to trigger the door to open. He leaned out when he didn’t see anyone on the other side. 

“Hey, where’d you guys go?” he called down the hall. 

He nearly immediately heard someone running down the hall towards him from the direction he’d thrown the pills. He waited until they were close enough that they’d have to know where he was before slipping back inside the room. 

By the time they entered, Kevin stood behind the table and struck a match. Two demons came in and then a third. They stalked closer, but still hung back, staring at him like they couldn’t figure out why he was there. 

“Let me guess, Crowley said you were looking for someone taller,” Kevin said. 

The demons looked between each other before one stepped forward. “I don’t know who Crowley is, boy, but just what do you think you’re going to do with that tiny fire stick?”

“You’d be surprised. If I were you, I’d call the rest in for reinforcements.”

The demon laughed. “Those mindless foot soldiers have already devoured your fellow crewmen. We’re taking command of this ship.”

“Just the three of you?”

“It wouldn’t even take all three of us to destroy a Men of Letters station.” 

Kevin smiled and it grew all the wider when he saw the flash of uncertainty in the demons’ eyes. They’d told him everything he needed to know. 

He dropped the match into the bowl. Flames erupted around the demons, engulfing them and lighting the dimly lit room. The force of the energy threw the demons back against the wall. Their bodies disintegrated to ash before hitting the floor.

He remained on alert for whoever the foot soldiers were, but finally took a moment to figure out where he was. From the sounds he’d heard out in the hallway, he’d guessed he was back on a freighter and the demon’s words had confirmed that. 

It was far too dark outside to see if the ship was anywhere near land or if he was adrift in the middle of the ocean. Either way, if this was really a ship that belonged to the Men of Letters, he knew there’d be enough resources to stop whatever else was aboard and make it back to shore. 

Parts of the room looked the same as the computer room at the bunker. There were the same light up buttons and dials that he and Charlie had been working with to tune the frequencies. His chest ached at the thought. 

He’d only just met Charlie. She was way more eccentric than anyone he’d ever hung out with before, but was really smart and she’d seemed cool. He pushed the thought aside and tried not to think about what must have happened to her. 

Unlike the computer room, there were different works stations set up around him. They reminded him of what the original Enterprise might have looked like if it had been built in the mid 20th Century.

One of the stations near the wall was equipped with radios in the same style as the ones he’d seen in the bunker. One of the display panels closer to the windows looked like a radar station. 

His hopes of finally figuring out where he was were dashed when he walked over and found that the screen was only playing some old space game. Fleets of spaceships appeared on the radar screen in different colors with designations beside them. There were other icons that seemed to show something like the number of turns, weapons and remaining energy. It all made perfect sense for a vintage phone app. He just wasn’t sure why it was running here. 

Even if it were just some kind of weird arcade, this room seemed as good as any to make a stand in. The radios had power and looked functional. There were also enough devices that he had to have control over something. 

He dug a jar of red paint and a brush from his bag. The Winchesters seemed to like spray paint, but he sucked at getting anything he sprayed to look like more than a blob or a drippy mess. He painted a devil’s trap on the floor in front of the door then on to a side window over what looked like a lab station. 

Kevin had barely set his brush to the glass before he jumped back as something flashed by outside. It was way too big to be a seagull and looked far more like some kind of experimental aircraft. 

A moment later, another one streaked by. The shape matched the spaceships on the fake radar screen. That was it. He’d officially gone insane. 

It wasn’t only the things that looked like spaceships. When he really scanned the area outside the window, he couldn’t make out anything other than stars far brighter than he’d ever seen. They weren’t only overhead, but were also below the horizon. Unless this was the calmest ocean ever, they were also where the water should be beneath the ship. 

“This is the last call to Beta Station. Do you read? Over.”

The voice breaking the silence nearly sent him leaping from his own skin. When he turned, there was no one there, but a new light on the radio flashed. When his nerves settled, he recognized the voice from the signal they’d been analyzing back at the bunker. 

He walked over to the radio and froze with his hand hovering over the receiver. The view had changed out the front windows. The stars were still there and the weird planes continued to fly by, but beyond them, the Earth hung in the blackness.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean sidestepped the ugly bastard as it rushed him. He threw a punch that felt like smashing his knuckles into concrete. The hit didn’t even faze the thing. 

It wasn’t as fast as some of the monsters they hunted, but it was bigger than Sam and solid as a rock. It growled as it came back at him and threw him into the wall. 

Dean was aware enough to know that the knife fell from his hand, but not enough to move his fingers to pick it up again. He wasn’t sure which way was up until the monster threw itself on top of him. 

“Stay down, Dean!” Sam shouted.

Dean pressed tight to the floor. A bullet rang out and the body over him went slack. It fell heavy on his chest with enough weight that he struggled to draw in a breath. He shoved the hulking corpse off with Sam’s help, grabbed his knife and rolled to his feet.

Sam yanked Dean behind him and again took aim with the gun. They stood together waiting for it to jump back at them, but the body didn’t move. 

“You got silver bullets in there?” Dean asked.

“No. It’s just stock ammo.” 

Dean watched the still body for a moment longer before he walked back towards it. He nudged it with his boot. When nothing happened, he kicked it over onto its back.

The thing had fangs like some combination of vampire and werewolf. The teeth were so big the mouth couldn’t fully close and the large brow was twisted in a permanent scowl. 

Sam walked up behind him. “What looks like that and goes down in one shot?”

“A Klingon with the augment virus?”

Apparently Sam agreed because he didn’t argue. He walked ahead down the hall then stopped to stare at something. Dean glanced once more at the body before following after his brother. 

“Dean, look out the window.”

Just the fact that there was a window meant they weren’t in any part of the bunker that they’d seen before. He stood beside Sam and looked into the night. Last he’d checked, it had been the afternoon. He must have been out longer than he’d thought. 

Dean lifted the sleeve of his jacket and tapped at his watch. “Huh. That’s weird. It’s still only five o’clock.” 

It wasn’t so much weird as troubling. If they were still in North America then they were looking at an unscheduled full solar eclipse, which fit the bill for a mega demonic omen. 

Sam’s eyes were still fixed on the window. “I can see the moon.”

“Yeah, that happens when you live above ground.”

“The Earth is behind it.”

“Come again?” 

Dean pushed in beside Sam and still didn’t see anything but stars. When he stood up on his toes, he saw the edge of the moon. It was big enough to fill the lower part of the window. He could clearly make out every crater just like in that planetarium show they’d snuck into back in high school. 

The stars weren’t twinkling either. They were steady-burning, bright white dots in a perfectly black sky. The largest ball of light was blue with spots of green and swirls of white. He had to admit that it did look like the pictures he’d seen of Earth. 

Dean slapped Sam’s shoulder. “I told you it was a Klingon.”

“That it?” Sam asked. “You have a complete meltdown on an airplane, but you’re fine with floating in space?”

“Well, in a spaceship, yeah. You can’t fall in space.”

“You can’t breathe either.”

“How well do you think you can breathe after your airplane takes a controlled flight into terrain and explodes?” Dean rolled his eyes at the look on Sam’s face. “Man, come on, we’re not in space. If we were, I’d be doing somersaults off the ceiling chasing flying M&Ms, which would be pretty damn awesome. But, no, we’re still stuck on the ground and this junker couldn’t fly to Kansas City, let alone to the moon. This is just some giant screensaver.”

A small spaceship zipped onto the frame to prove his point. Another followed after it and fired torpedoes. The other ship exploded. He had to get himself one of these things. Before he could turn to Sam to gloat, he had to grab to window ledge as the ground beneath them shook. 

“You were saying?” Sam asked. 

Dean’s brow creased. “Dude, there’s no frickin’ way… Sam!”

Sam spun around and fired just in time to take down another Klingon as it rushed down the hall towards them. Unfortunately, it wasn’t actually a Klingon, but they seemed to be the easy to kill cousin of the Jefferson Starship and he didn’t care what they really were.

Several more were right behind that one. Sam fired until an empty click replaced the satisfying blasts of bullets. Dean pushed in front of his brother. He tossed Sam the demon blade and threw himself at the closest Klingon with the machete raised.

He swung for the neck. This knife wasn’t great for removing heads. He’d only still had it attached to his jeans because he hadn’t removed it after the last hunt. He would’ve packed a bigger knife if he’d known they’d be fighting an army of undead mutants. The blade still hacked far enough that the body crumpled. 

Dean sliced across the throat of the next closest one. When it fell, he saw two others both trying to take down Sam. His brother twisted the demon blade into the heart of one while Dean jabbed his knife through the back of the other. 

He couldn’t tell how many were coming. It didn’t matter. He’d fight them one by one until there were no more or until he could no longer lift the knife. Even in space, nothing changed. 

“Hit the deck!”

Dean wasn’t sure that he’d heard the words until they were followed by shotgun blasts. He crouched down and looked for Sam. When he saw that his brother had also heard the warning, Dean crawled down beside him. The Klingons fell around them. 

When the shooting stopped, he rolled onto his back to see a pair of commando boots. The woman wearing them was dressed fully in black with a low cut sleeveless shirt. She carried a full ammo belt draped over her shoulder and a pump-action shotgun on her hip. This might just be his lucky day after all. 

Dean faltered when his gaze made it up from her chest to her face. She wore an eye patch, which he had no problem with, but his dreams of joining the ultimate Mile High Club were squelched when he recognized the face behind the patch. 

“Charlie?”

She held her hand down to help him up. Dean grasped it, but relied on his own power to get his feet beneath him so he didn’t pull her down on top of him. Sam was also up by the time Dean turned around. 

“Where did you learn to shoot like that?” Sam asked. 

“First person shooters, baby. It’s just like in the games except a lot louder and messier… And what exactly are those things? Klingons?”

Dean mouthed an ‘I told you so’ to Sam before returning his attention to Charlie. “Something like that. When did you find time for a costume change?”

“I just came to in the crew lockers so I grabbed a commando suit, found this bad ass patch in a spilled first aid kit and, oh yeah, stocked up at the armory.”

“Speaking of which, you’re gonna have to point us in that direction.”

“Can do.” Charlie turned down the hall, motioning for them to follow her. “This is great. I always have this dream, but you guys aren’t usually here and this set is way cooler than usual.”

“Dream?” Sam asked. “Charlie, you know you’re awake, right?”

“Yeah, because obviously there are really Klingons running around and we’re getting messages from… Holy crap.” Charlie spun around on her heels. “That really happened. Is this really happening?”

“Afraid so, kiddo,” Dean said.

“No way.” Charlie’s face lit up. “Can you believe this anti-gravity system?”

“Yeah, I know. It sucks.”

Charlie didn’t seem to hear him as she continued on, practically skipping down the hall. “Do you think it uses magic? Because there’s like no way with this structure we’re getting internal rotation. Oh, crap.” She stopped mid-step and looked back over her shoulder. “So if this is really real then did I really hear Kevin?”

“Kevin’s here, too?” Sam asked.

“I think so. I mean, I didn’t think it was him. I thought it was like one of those diversion tricks where they try do draw you out. You know, they’re all ‘hey, I’m all vulnerable over here’ and you go to save them and it’s really this giant tentacle monster that jumps down from the ceiling and…just for instance. That probably happens to you guys all time.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Dean said. “Let’s just go grab Kevin before the ammo run. That kid’s probably curled up somewhere having a stroke right about now.” 

He let Charlie walk ahead so he could lean in to whisper to Sam. “How exactly are they here? I mean we did the ritual. They weren’t even on the same floor as us.”

“I don’t know, Dean. None of us should be here.”

Charlie stopped up ahead. “It was down one of these halls, but now they all look the same. I mean the bodies are different, but I wasn’t paying attention because I didn’t think they were real and now it’s...”

Dean stood behind her and set his hand on her shoulder. He gave it a squeeze before slipping past her. Aside from the bodies, there was something else lying on the ground ahead. 

He crouched down next to a bottle. A few stray pills rattled inside when he picked it up. He read the label and tightened his hand around it. They were the pills he’d given the kid. 

“Damn it, Kevin.” Dean tossed the bottle at the wall before he stood up. “He’s been down this way alright.” 

At the bend in the corridor, there was a door that didn’t look anything like the ones that had been back in the office area. Dean stepped towards it and it slid open. 

“Hey, we need to get us one of—” 

Dean stumbled back when a spray of water blasted him in the face. He wiped the moisture from his eyes. Kevin stood in front of him with a mini water pistol clutched in his hand. It took a moment for Dean’s vision to clear enough to see the devil’s trap on the floor between them. 

“Dean?” Kevin sounded as shocked as he looked. “I thought you guys were dead.”

“Not at the moment.” Dean looked past Kevin to see more symbols drawn over the windows. “You do get that all this stuff only works on demons?”

“Of course. I drew it because of the demons.”

“Those things out there aren’t demons.”

“The ones that followed me in here were. You guys must have run into the aliens. They’re working together. Get in here before someone sees you.”

“Uh, yes, sir.” Dean shot Sam a puzzled look before scanning the room Kevin led them into. “What’s all this? You got command central setup in here?”

“Yeah.” 

Kevin scurried over to one of the stations of what really did look like a starship bridge. There were large windows at the front of the room that gave a full view of the space around them. Dean stepped closer and watched the spaceships battling beyond the anti-demon sigils. 

He still couldn’t decide whether or not he believed that any of this was actually real. He’d always used what he could see and feel as the basis for sorting reality from all the other crap in his head.

He could see the ships firing at each other. He could feel the vibration beneath his hands as he leaned over what was maybe a navigation console. He was careful not to accidentally push the Infinite Improbability Drive button that he imagined was hidden on there somewhere. 

“Why aren’t they shooting at us?” Dean asked. 

The last thing he wanted was to be the target of an intergalactic war without even knowing where his weapons were. But while he might be tentative about most of this, there was one thing he knew for sure. He’d never been in a fight where asking someone not to shoot him had actually worked. 

“As far as I can tell, both sides think this is their ship,” Kevin said. “The demons broadcasted that they captured it and I’m on an encrypted line with the Men of Letters home base.”

All the stars looked the same and Dean didn’t realize they were drifting until a swirling mass came into view at the edge of the window. There were billowing clouds of glowing energy that reminded him far too much of the portal that had taken him out of Purgatory. 

Dean leaned to get a better look, watching as a large ship emerged from the dark center. It was followed by a swarm of smaller ships like the ones that already warred around them.

Charlie pushed in beside him. “Oh sweet! There’s a wormhole out there?”

“Um, yeah, or something like the theoretical equivalent.” There was apprehension in Kevin’s tone. “That’s the gate they’re coming in through. I talked to Houston, and they said—”

“Wait, Houston?” Dean asked. “Like ‘Houston, we have a problem’? That’s the Men of Letter’s home base?”

“No, the home base is in Lebanon, Kansas.”

Dean turned away from the window. “But we just came from Lebanon.”

“Dean,” Sam said. “The uniforms? This technology? I don’t think this our Earth.”

A voice crackled over the speakers. “Solo, do you copy?” 

The radio looked and sounded more like on old school CB than cutting edge communication technology. Dean wasn’t sure which of the dead crewmen the guy was trying to contact, but Kevin grabbed the receiver like the call was for him. 

“Yeah I’m still here. I mean, I copy. I have a couple Men of Letters here now, too. Over.”

“Solo?” Dean asked when Kevin released the button on the receiver. “Well, Sammy, I guess that makes you Chewbacca.” Dean smirked when Sam glared at him. “Of course, you’re more of a pain in the ass like Spock. At least there are too many Klingons for this to be the Wrath of Khan.”

“You saw Klingons?” Kevin asked. 

Sam scowled. “There are no Klingons.”

“No one likes a skeptic, Sam. And, seriously, if they’re just ugly ass aliens instead of the undead, that explains the whole dying easy bit.” Dean nodded towards the radio. “So what happened to your little friend, Solo?” 

“There’s a few minutes delay in the signal relay and they’re checking in with another ship. Anyway, from what they’ve said and from looking through the system files here I think I have the general idea about what’s going on.”

“Is that classified information or you gonna brief the crew?” Dean asked. 

“Short version? Earth’s demons are working with aliens to destroy the human race. There’s a device on the space station out there that’s stabilizing the wormhole and, uh… I think these guys are kind of expecting us to save the world.” 

“That’s perfect!” Charlie said. “I mean, that’s what you guys do.”

“Which books did you read?” Dean asked. “Because it wasn’t the ones about us. Kevin, you call those poor bastards back and tell them they got the wrong guys.”

“I don’t think there is anyone else. That’s what they’re checking on.”

“It doesn’t matter what they say,” Sam said. “We have to get out of here before those other ships figure out what’s going on.”

Charlie spun around to face Sam. “There’s no way we’re leaving. We’re on the bridge of the Battlestar Galactica getting ready to board DS9 to end the Dominion War. How can you not think this is the best day ever?”

Kevin looked up from the radio controls. “I thought we were fighting Klingons.”

“Guys, enough. Seriously,” Sam said. “I’m getting the book and we’re leaving.”

“What book?” Charlie asked.

“The one that got us here in the first place.”

“You mean we weren’t transported in by overseeing mystical forces to save the world?”

“Not exactly,” Dean said. “Spock here just isn’t as good at reading Greek as he thought.”

“Well, that’s a little less epic.” Charlie sighed. “But, hey, either way we’re here and there are people to save. We get a totally awesome space adventure and they get to live. Except for the evil demon-y ones.” 

“Beta Station? This is Houston.” 

The voice came from the radio again. It was different than the one that had been speaking a few minutes earlier, but Dean recognized it as the one they’d heard back at the bunker. 

“We’ve confirmed the location of the Gamma and Delta Stations,” the man from Houston continued in a voice that promised nothing but bad news. “You’re the only remaining active destroyer. Can you complete the mission? Over.” 

Kevin’s hand rested on the receiver as he looked between them. “What should I tell them?”

“Obviously, we’re going to save the planet,” Charlie said. “Right?”

Dean shrugged. “I guess if we’re all that’s left, we can’t screw it up worse than anyone else.” 

“Dean, we need to talk,” Sam said. “Alone.” 

Sam clutched Dean’s arm, gripping his bicep hard and steering him through the door, which slid open before his face smashed into it. Dean waited until the door slid closed again behind them before twisting free of his brother’s grip and shoving him back. 

“What the hell, Sam?”

“This isn’t our war, Dean. It’s not even our world.”

“Monsters are monsters. No matter what world they come from, they still need putting down.” 

“Maybe, but we don’t have to be the ones to do it. We can’t just jump into the middle of a war without knowing the sides.”

“If you wanna be all Machiavelli about this, fine,” Dean said. “But I’ve seen the sides, and I’m putting my money on the guys who aren’t fugly, alien, demon-controlled dicks.”

They barely had to turn the corner to see some of the bodies littering the ship’s floor. It was clear enough by looking at any one of them which side they’d been playing for and that was enough for Dean. 

“I know you don’t see a way out,” Sam said. “But even if you don’t care whether or not you make it back, what about Charlie and Kevin? They think this is a game and you’re not helping.”

Dean kept quiet, staring at the wall while he decided between blowing Sam off and the truth. It was usually easier to make excuses, but if he didn’t come out with it now, Sam would just keep pushing until he did. 

“Charlie and Kevin are screwed either way.” Dean lifted his gaze to meet Sam’s. “You know why? Because they drew the short end and met us.”

“Dean, that’s not—”

“Damn it, Sam. Don’t. You know it’s true. Everyone we’ve ever met… They die bloody one way or another. If they’re having fun, I say let them. Hell, I just want a fight. No strings attached. Just all in win or lose.”

“That sounds great, Dean, but if we don’t close the gates back in our own world then things just as bad as these could come in there, too.”

“They will.”

“They’ll what?” Sam asked. 

“Those monsters. The demons. They’re coming and they’ll get in. Sooner or later, even if we close the damn gates ‘forever’ it’ll only be until something bigger and nastier tears the world a new one. I can’t save our world, not really, but we might just have half a shot at saving this one for today.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Dean narrowed his eyes on Sam and waited for the ‘but’ that didn’t come. “Seriously? You’re okay with this?” 

“No, Dean, I’m not, but if fighting aliens is going to make you happy then I’ll go along with it. As long as you promise me this isn’t you trying to go out in a blaze of glory. We’ll do what we can, but if it’s a losing battle then we get out.”

“I don’t wanna die, Sam. I just want to kick some alien ass, fire off some photon torpedoes and save the world. Then I’m going home, washing off the alien guts and passing out in my own bed. You in?”

“Fine. But I’m not Spock.”

Dean grinned. “Dude, you’re totally Spock.”


	5. Chapter 5

Dean fastened the last button and pressed the wrinkles from the uniform, which was only slightly bloodstained. They’d blown off the head of the thing that had been wearing it, but the spray pattern had mostly decorated the corridor wall and the floor had sloped enough that the pooling blood had flowed away from the body. 

He pushed aside the visual of the destroyed monster’s skull. It didn’t help. Usually, Dean liked an excuse to dress up, but this uniform reeked and was making his skin crawl. 

Dean grumbled as he adjusted the collar. “Just when I thought this plan couldn’t get any worse…” 

“It’s your plan,” Sam said.

“Exactly.”

In the planning stage, proposing to pull an Independence Day and slip into the mother ship undetected to take it down from the inside had sounded like an awesome idea. It sounded less appealing with every word Charlie and Kevin shared about how to fly over to the station. 

“Aren’t you dressed yet?” Charlie poked her head around the corner. “The Klingon invasion is going to be over before you finish changing.”

Dean grabbed one of the shotguns Charlie had raided from the ship’s armory. He threw the strap over his shoulder before he really looked at Charlie. She still wore the same commando suit she’d been wearing before, which left Dean struggling with her definition of blending in. 

“So I’m going to slip in as a demon infantry man and you’re what exactly?” Dean asked. “Lara Croft meets Pirates of the Caribbean?”

“I’m too bad ass to need a silly uniform.” 

“How can you even see to shoot with that thing, Captain Morgan?” 

Charlie’s shoulders sagged. “This is totally my dream come true…kind of literally, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a dream so I’m… I’m kinda freaking out a little here. The eye patch keeps me in character.”

“And you make it awesome.” Dean lifted her patch so he could look her in the eyes, both of them. “But you don’t have to do this.”

“Yes I do. There’s no way I’m missing out on this.” Charlie readjusted her patch and straightened her stance. “Besides, admit it, you bitches would be so lost without me.” 

“You got me there.”

Charlie hustled off when Kevin called her back over. Dean returned to Sam. His brother’s frown deepened when Dean stood in front of him. 

“You got more commentary about my wardrobe?” Dean asked. 

“It’s not the clothes I’m worried about, Dean. We’re not talking about driving across town here. We’re talking about you getting into a spaceship and crossing a battlefield to dock with a station full of monsters we know nothing about.”

“Well, when you put it like that, I guess we’re screwed.”

“It’s not funny, Dean.”

“Are you kidding me? Dude, we’re on a spaceship. We’re in frickin’ outer space talking about hijacking an alien space station.”

“This is real. It isn’t a punch line, and Charlie isn’t a trained pilot, let alone an astronaut.”

“If those growling asshats can swing it, it can’t be that hard. I’m also damn sure Charlie could kick both our asses in a spaceship firefight.”

“Maybe she’s played a lot of video games, but we’re talking about flying an actual spacecraft not playing Raiden.”

“Notice I didn’t ask you to drive. You sucked ass at that game. This is real, I get it, Sam. I do. But games are the closest to spaceship flight training any of us got so Charlie is still my draft pick.”

Dean followed Sam’s gaze out the window. Even without anyone shooting at them, it was impossible to ignore the war outside. Ships just like the one he was going to get in with Charlie were blowing up left and right. 

The ship they were taking was one of the shuttles that the demons had used to board this ship. It was far more like a Cessna plane than the big, solid carrier they were on now. 

If Sam thought this was something Dean was excited about, he was dead wrong. Space battles were awesome on screens, but climbing into a flying coffin in the vacuum of space was right up there with his worst nightmare. 

“If you die here, there won’t be any getting you back.”

Dean hadn’t thought about it, but Sam was right. They didn’t even know what dying here meant. Dead tended to be a temporary state for them, but they’d been in a universe with no Heaven or Hell before. With all the demons running around, there was obviously a Hell here, but he wasn’t sure if it knew he belonged there. He didn’t plan on finding out.

“That’s not gonna happen,” Dean said. “If I die here so does everyone down there and you go back to our Earth to finish the trials alone. You really think I’d go if I thought that was gonna happen?”

Sam still looked on edge, but some of the tension left his shoulders. “I still don’t like you going alone.”

“I’m not going alone. I’m going with Charlie. Those two freaky child prodigies are the best shots we’ve got and I need you here with Captain Solo. Short of guarding the door, I’m no good to him.”

“Dean, we already talked about this. You’re not some idiot grunt.”

“It doesn’t change the facts. You can help Kevin with the calculations. I can’t. Hell, I don’t even know what that kid’s saying half the time. I’m going to go do what I’m good at. You two just figure out how to clean up the mess once I blow that wormhole maker to bits.”

Sam pulled out the demon blade and pressed the handle into the palm of Dean’s hand. “Then when we get home, you’ll let me do what I have to.”

“Let’s just take this one battle at a time.”

Dean tried to pull his hand away, but Sam tightened his grip and waited for Dean to meet his eyes. 

“Dean, I’m letting you go to an alien spaceship alone.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a lot nicer than me, and I’d like to see you try to stop me.” Dean smiled and patted Sam’s arm. “I’m not in this alone. I’ve got you here backing me up. Like it not, you’re always gonna have me backing you up, too.”

Sam released his hand and stood beside him as Charlie bounced back over. She carried more ammunition and some kind of walkie-talkie style radio. It wasn’t exactly the pin on communicator Dean had been hoping for, but he’d take anything that wouldn’t leave them in the dark without a line of communication to Sam and Kevin.

“It took some work, but we got an encrypted channel on this thing,” Charlie said. “We’ll be able to call in to the mother ship without the demons listening in. So are we ready or what?”

Dean tugged at the hem of his uniform. “As ready as we’ll ever be.”

“Be careful, Dean.”

“You too, Sammy.” Dean turned to salute Kevin. “Make it happen, Solo.”

Kevin returned the salute before hunching back over his work station. Dean had no idea what the kid was concentrating on, but he seemed far more at ease with it than when he worked on translating the tablet.

Dean followed Charlie through the sliding doors and down the hall. As they walked, they passed more parallel streaks of blood smeared over the walls. There was a set at each section of hallways. Dean wasn’t sure if it was a sign to the other Klingons that the section had already been cleared or if they were just marking their territory. 

The closer they got to the docking port, the harder it was for Dean to focus on anything aside from the tightening knots in his stomach. He turned sharply down hall when he saw familiar territory. 

“Hey, I need to grab something,” Dean said. 

“What are we getting?” Charlie asked. “Sam already grabbed the book, which I so need of a copy of by the way.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening, Hermione.” 

He led Charlie down the hall that he and Sam had first come down, back towards the conference room they’d arrived in. Dean stopped one door short at an office that looked like it had belonged to a commanding officer. He pushed in the door and walked over to the desk. 

Charlie stood in the doorway with her hands crossed over her chest as he pulled open drawers until he found what he’d been looking for. He pulled out a bottle of aged bourbon. Commander Ashworth had been a man of good taste. 

“Please tell me you’re not going to drink that,” Charlie said. “You don’t even know what it is or where it’s been.”

Dean turned the bottle over in hand to read the label. It was Old Rip Van Winkle 107 proof, a bourbon that was out of his pay grade back at their world and likely was no different here. Charlie was right that she shouldn’t take candy from strangers, but he’d take liquor from just about anyone, especially before boarding a plane on steroids. 

“It’s from Kentucky. Looks like whiskey…” Dean unscrewed cap and took a whiff. “Smells like whiskey…” He took a swig. “Woo. And tastes like bourbon. We’re good.”

“Well, you’re definitely not flying,” Charlie said.

Dean clenched his jaw. He sure as hell wished he wasn’t flying, yet they were still heading for a docking port. He tried to focus on his own theory that it wasn’t really flying if he couldn’t fall, but damn Sam and his logic. The idea of floating around in airless vacuum wasn’t comforting any more. 

His insides were twisted in knots by the time they reached the ladder to board the ship. He took a deep breath and followed Charlie, climbing up through the narrow entrance porthole and into the spacecraft. 

It wasn’t exactly the Millennium Falcon, but it was roomier than he’d imagined it would be. Instead of having the claustrophobic aisles of an airplane, it had a floor plan more like an Enterprise shuttlecraft. Inside, was the same old technology as the larger ship.

“I thought this was the demon’s ship,” Dean said. 

“Well, sort of. They boarded with it, but it came from the station, which belonged to the Men of Letters until the demons and Klingons took it over. I bet the Klingon ships are way cooler, even without the cloaking technology. From the specs, it looks like they’re actually built for interstellar travel. These Men of Letter ships haven’t even made it to Mars.”

Charlie set her gun aside and hopped right into one of the pilot seats. Dean reluctantly sat in the co-pilot chair, keeping his hands as far away from the controls as possible. 

“Super.” Dean took another gulp from the bottle. “And you’re sure you can drive this thing?”

“I read the manual and training info back on the bridge. It should be pretty straightforward. I mean, the system runs like a bazillion calculations, but the actual navigation is mostly automated. I’ve gone in blind to way more complicated game setups and after a few tries I’m usually good.”

Dean fussed with the collar on his uniform, unfastening the top button. “You get that we only got one try at this one then it’s game over, right?” 

“Oh, yeah, but I’m pretty mostly sure it will fine. I’d just feel better if we had a full away team. Kirk never left the Enterprise without canon fodder.”

“I knew I was here for something.”

Charlie started pressing buttons on the controls. Dean hoped her tapping on the panel wasn’t nearly as random as it looked. He shifted his gaze out the window to the other ships that flew around them. They did make it look easy enough. 

The Earth was still there hanging out beyond the moon. It was big compared to the rest of the lights in the sky, but small enough that he could cover it with a few fingers. It was hard to believe that lonely spot held everything they’d been living and dying for. 

“You should probably buckle up,” Charlie said.

“I doubt seatbelts are gonna help. This seems like more of a tuck your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye scenario.”

Despite his words, he did pull the straps over his shoulders and snap the chest buckle in place. It only made him feel more confined. A few seconds later, he unbuckled it. 

Dean knocked back the last of the whiskey and tossed the bottle aside. He gripped the armrests as if holding onto them was what would keep him from falling into space. A hissed curse slipped over his lips as the ship shook with the releasing of the docking clamps. 

“Are you humming?” Charlie asked.

“What? No. Just keep your eyes on the…whatever you’re supposed to be watching.”

“Good Gandalf, you really are afraid of flying. I thought Edlund just wrote that into the books to make you seem more human. Not that you’re not a human. You’re not like a Cylon or anything, but you know, like a kryptonite thing.”

“Shouldn’t you be concentrating?” 

“The undocking procedure is mostly automated. Until we’re clear of the ship, it basically flies itself… I mean drives. It drives itself. There’s no flying here. It’s just like Space Mountain, but more awesome and without the ridiculous lines.” 

He had wanted to ride Space Mountain. Dean settled back in his seat and thought of every science fiction dream he’d ever had. Admittedly, none of them had involved dogfights in small ships, but the thoughts still made it easier to not focus on the reality of the situation. 

The station grew large in the front window far quicker than Dean anticipated. Of course, he had no idea how fast they were really going and didn’t really want to know. He only knew they were slowing down by the sound of the engine. 

Dean didn’t ease his white-knuckle grip on the armrest until the station’s docking clamps locked into place. His neck and shoulders ached from how tensely his muscles were coiled. He couldn’t have been happier to jump out of the seat and grab his gun. 

“Okay, I’ll take it from here, Starbuck,” Dean said. “You keep the engine running.”

Charlie hopped out of pilot’s chair. “What? No way. I’m going with you. I’m not just some stellar taxi driver.”

“No, you’re the best damn pilot in the system, which is why I need you here in case this all goes to hell.”

“Even Princess Leia got to go on the rescue mission.”

Dean raised his brow. “And how did that work out?” 

“Well, Carrie Fisher looked pretty hot in that slave bikini.”

“Touché. And not happening.” 

Dean looped the strap of the gun over his shoulder. He picked up the radio and held it out to Charlie, who looked at him with something between a glare and a pout. She snatched the receiver, but still didn’t put down her gun. 

“I’m not a secretary either.”

“Damn right you’re not, but you are the only who’s gonna have a clue what Kevin is saying if he radios in. You’re not gonna be some princess locked up in the tower. I’m going to be incognito, but they’ll know the ship is here so I need you ready to defend it.”

There was no way in hell Dean would actually leave her alone if he thought she would be the primary target. They’d catch onto him soon enough and assume that it was his ship, but Charlie seemed to buy it and that was all he needed. 

“Okay, but you totally owe me a gunfight.”

“Deal.”

Dean strode to the docking port and hesitated only a moment before popping the hatch. The hiss of hydraulics masked his sigh of relief. They were fully docked with a tight seal. A ladder and air awaited him on the other side. 

“You better be careful or your brother is so going to kill me,” Charlie told him as he climbed down. “And I leave no man behind so don’t even think about getting captured and sold into intergalactic slavery.”

“I look stupid in a bikini anyway.”

Dean winked at her before locking the hatch behind him. He climbed down the ladder and hopped onto the steel grate below. If he didn’t think about it, he could pretend that it was actually solid ground beneath his feet. 

He adjusted the gun and walked down the dark corridor. It seemed unlikely that a place like this would have video surveillance, but despite the appearance of the technology, it was a functioning space station. He tried to look as casual as possible just in case. 

Heavy footsteps sounded down the hall ahead. Dean took the first turn in the other direction and waited to hear if he was being followed. 

He had no clue where he was going, but it was a safe bet that the thing he was looking for would be under heavy guard and demon guards were rarely as smooth as they thought. He just needed to avoid the Storm Troopers and it would be clear sailing. 

He headed down a tight set of stairs and forced himself to keep walking normally when he heard more footsteps ahead. There was another set behind him so there was no point in turning back. 

One of the Klingons stopped at a crossing in the hall. It looked at him, growling as it sniffed the air. Even Dean could smell the stench of the uniform he wore and could only hope that it smelled bad enough to cover up the scent of Sam’s shampoo. Dean stared back at the thing as if he were bored until it walked on and he let himself breath again.

“That’s right, move on stinky,” Dean muttered beneath his breath. 

He walked swiftly to the intersection before another one could come. Both the Klingons had been heading in the same direction so he could only assume that was also where he wanted to be. 

Dean came to a quick stop when he rounded the corner. The Klingon that had spotted him hadn’t gone as far as he’d thought, and it wasn’t alone.


	6. Chapter 6

Physics had never been Kevin’s favorite subject. He’d always aced the tests, but theoretical physics in particular had been on his list of need to learn for the grade only. The Einstein–Rosen Bridge had rated particularly high on his useless information scale. 

On his occasional breaks from studying, he saw the fictional variations of the theory with the Stargates and Bjorn wormhole. He’d always found it hard to suspend disbelief to think that a wormhole could actually be stabilized for travel. 

Now he was looking out the window at a massive real world example of an Einstein–Rosen Bridge. Suddenly, all that information cluttering up his head seemed far less useless. 

Even though they were out of view of the window, Kevin could still see Dean and Charlie’s ship along with the station on the radar screen. Flying over to the station was a once in a lifetime opportunity that Kevin was happy to pass up. 

It seemed that having lived with the non-stop stress of studies had prepared him for managing stress in far more dangerous situations as well. That didn’t mean he liked it. On the other hand, it was nice to finally feel a sense of control by managing coordination with the Men of Letters on the ground. 

Most of his dreams before meeting the Winchesters had been fairly boring, although he’d found many terrifying at the time. His nightmares had generally been along the lines of first day exams with his normal dreams being unending series of mathematical equations or whatever he’d been studying before falling into bed. 

On the rare occasion, he had dreamed of being at the command of a starship. Logic told him that he was in one of those dreams now, but he knew he wasn’t if only because he would have dreamed of a far more realistic spaceship. 

Running on straight science, this thing would never be able to function. The computer system was physically antiquated beyond anything he’d ever imagined, but seemed to have the capacity of some of the better current day supercomputers from their world. 

From what they’d found in the history, the space race of this Earth had been lead by the Men of Letters after the demon’s connection to the aliens had been discovered. Physical technology had stagnated in favor of mystical research.

Kevin knew he wasn’t going to find the answer to what was stabilizing the wormhole in traditional physics theory. At the same time, magic in its own way still had to work within the bounds of the physical universe. 

“There’s no way this spell could have brought us here,” Sam said. 

Kevin looked over his shoulder to see Sam toss the book onto the table. Sam pushed his hand through his hair and paced across the room. 

“What do you mean?” Kevin asked.

“I’ve read it over a hundred times and cross-referenced it with the Men of Letters database on this ship. It’s not a teleportation spell. Not usually.” 

“Something brought us here. It can’t be coincidence that it happened at the same time you and Dean did the spell.”

“But that’s the thing. Dean and I did the spell. You and Charlie were nowhere near us. Even if the spell was altered to actually transport people, it should only affect those right around the ritual.”

Kevin’s gaze drifted back out the window. “What if there was something amplifying it up?”

“The wormhole?”

“No, not the wormhole itself.” Kevin turned around to face Sam. “In the Einstein–Rosen bridge theory, a wormhole should only exist as a micro tunnel for an instant. But the Morris–Thorne wormhole theory said that a wormhole could be made traversable with ‘exotic matter’.”

Kevin had been studying the Men of Letter’s information on the ship as if he were preparing for the biggest exam of his life. He’d also been communicating directly with members at the home base. 

They’d explained that the demons had taken control of a device to artificially stabilize the wormhole. Everything they’d told him fit with what he already knew of wormhole theory, but what he couldn’t figure out was how the device was working. 

Kevin turned his attention to the screen. The system was navigated by command prompts and required nearly as much focus to use as translating the tablet. Its low resolution display showed blocky green text over a black background, which was a far cry from the computer he’d lived and breathed by before he’d become a prophet. 

“The thing is, I finished going through the information home base sent for the booster technology,” Kevin said. “The Men of Letters hadn’t built it to create a wormhole. They’d meant for it to stop one.”

“Yeah, I heard them say on the radio that the demons had reprogrammed it.”

“That’s why I thought it was a computer, but this information they sent is about a hollow nickel alloy cube. It’s only being used to polarize the energy source. Theoretically, this thing could do anything. All it’s doing is pumping out energy.”

Sam’s attention drifted to the radio. “Enough that we could receive their radio signals in a parallel universe?”

“Not just the radio. Charlie was able to access her computer that’s tied into the one back at the bunker from this station. The power boost is linking something between the Men of Letters stations.”

“And we tapped into that energy with the spell.” Sam’s frown deepened as he seemed to catch up with what Kevin was saying. “If Dean destroys that box, we’re stuck here.”

***

Dean didn’t have to wonder this time whether or not the Klingons saw him for what he was. A mass of them crowded together, gnashing their teeth as they lumbered towards him. Their growls echoed though the halls so he couldn’t tell if there was only the one group or if he was surrounded. 

Either way, there was no getting through them or pretending that he wasn’t here. He raised his shotgun and blasted the one in front dead in the chest before running the other way. He pumped another shell into the chamber, turned to take out the next closest one and kept running for the door at the end of the corridor. 

The door looked like the one that led to the bridge back on the ship. He ran full speed at it, having to skid to avoid slamming into it when it didn’t automatically open. Dean beat on the door with his fist. It didn’t budge. He let the gun hang loose at his side to dig his fingers into the door’s seam in a last ditch effort to pry it open.

“Come on, you son of a bitch,” he growled. “Damn it!”

Dean spun around to see the horde closing in. He’d run straight into a dead end and there was no getting around them. He pressed his back to the wall and slammed through every shell he had. They kept coming even after he blasted through the last cartridge. 

He pulled the gun strap from over his shoulder and got ready to start swinging the barrel like a bat. Before he could take his first swing, the door beside him slid open. 

Dean startled back then relaxed when he saw that it was Charlie. He nodded to her and jumped aside so she could swing around for a clear shot. She blasted through the remaining Klingons then pulled him through the door. 

There wasn’t a room behind it like he’d expected. It was an elevator. The door slid closed and the floor jerked beneath them. They began to move, going up according to the numbers. 

Dean came out of fight or flight mode enough to fully take in the fact that he was standing beside Charlie. “What the hell are you doing here?” Dean asked. “I told you to stay with the ship.”

“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not really great at following rules, which is lucky for you because someone needed to save your ass. Not to mention, pointing you in the right direction because you’re seriously lost in space.”

She glanced at the elevator numbers then handed him a new pile of shells. Dean loaded as many as he could and shoved the extras into his pockets. 

“You know where we’re going?”

“I hacked into the station’s layout, security records and communications. There weren’t any cool captain’s logs, but there was a lot of talk about some kind of box that they’re keeping on the bridge.”

“Awesome. Let’s go blow us up a box then.”

“No! Kevin radioed and it turns out if we blow up the box then we’re maybe kind of stuck here forever. We just need to shut it down and bring it back to the ship.”

“Is that all?” Dean asked. “Anymore fine print Kevin wanted to share?”

“Nope, but just so you know, Sam says you’re in serious trouble for ditching me.”

“Yeah, well, he can take it out of my ass if we make it back in one piece.”

The doors slid open and they stepped out into an empty hall. It was far wider than the narrow corridors he’d been slipping through down in the docking area. There was more space to defend, but also more ways to get out of a tight spot. 

It was only a few seconds before the distant sound of growling was accompanied by the thud of footsteps closing in fast from both directions. 

Charlie spun around with her back to Dean and took the first shot. Dean followed up by shooting the first Klingon to come down his side. He walked backwards, keeping tight to Charlie and letting her lead the way as they inched towards their target. 

“This should be it,” Charlie said.

Dean turned towards the doors with the shotgun barrel raised and prepped to fire. The doors slid open to reveal a bridge similar to the one from the ship, only far larger. The panoramic windows overlooked the wormhole. 

There were no Klingons on the bridge, but there were several douchebags in suits who didn’t look as if they could figure out how Dean and Charlie were there. Dean might have thought it was the last holdout of the crew that had been manning this station, but Kevin had already warned them about what the demons were wearing these days. 

“Thanks for keeping an eye on things, but we’ll take it from here,” Dean said.

The closest demon’s confusion melted into a smart ass smirk that Dean looked forward to wiping from its face. Any demon with a clue from their world would already have him pinned to a wall. He could tell by how confidently the demon approached that it had no idea who it was dealing with.

“Did you hear that?” the demon asked the others. “This librarian is playing soldier with his girl Friday and he’d like his station back.”

“Hey!” Charlie said. “I’m nobody’s girl.”

Dean smiled wryly when they all laughed. “I’ll tell you what. You can stay on the station.”

He lowered the shotgun and tossed it to Charlie. She caught it easily and looked just as pissed as he’d expected. 

“But you really shouldn’t have called her that.” Dead pulled out the demon blade. “Who wants to dance first?”

The closest demon scoffed as it stepped forward. “A knife? This isn’t even going to be sporting.”

Dean couldn’t agree more, but waited for the demon to charge him. He ducked the punch and came back up to bury the blade deep in its chest. After a hard twist, he shoved the body to the floor. Dean looked expectantly at the next demon, who had backed off with the fall of its comrade. 

“What is that thing?” the demon asked. 

Dean shrugged. “Just a knife. Come on, you’re not scared of a librarian, are you?”

The demons looked at each other and then back at a small grey box with glowing blue sides. One of them ran forward at Dean while the other went for Charlie. A shot went off. Dean turned to look, and the demon in front of him took the opening to knock him back into a console, shooting pain up his lower back.

Dean braced himself against the console, using his legs to kick the demon back. He surged forward to jab the knife into its chest. He spun towards Charlie, who took a second shot at her demon, knocking it back. Dean moved in to finish it off. 

“You okay?” Dean asked.

“Are you kidding me? That was like five hundred times cooler than in the games. Okay, it was also way scarier, but so worth it.” 

Charlie’s hand trembled when she held out his gun, but she did still look excited. After Dean took the weapon back, she jogged over to the box.

It looked like a miniature Borg cube with a dull metallic surface covered in engravings. The top symbol belonged to the Men of Letters while the others could be Enochian or Swahili for all he could tell. Dean wasn’t as interested in the carvings as in the shimmering blue capsules that were fitted into the side of the cube. 

“What is this?” Dean asked. “The Secret of the Ooze?”

Charlie turned over the cube. Despite the glowing light, it wasn’t wired into anything. She grasped one of the tubes and fidgeted with it until it popped out of the slot. The blue light continued to shine, dancing within the capsule almost as if it were alive.

“It’s grace,” she said as she handed it to him. “I’m pretty sure it won’t turn us into Teenage Mutant Turtles, but according to Kevin, together these tubes have about as much juice as…oh, about a hundred million nuclear reactors.”

“This is bottled angel grace?” Dean tipped the tube in his hand then set it carefully into an empty tray Charlie set between them. “Nothing like running around with nuclear reactors.”

“Kevin made it sound like the stuff is pretty inert when it’s not focused into something. You know, like a magical wand. I think if we drop it, the pretty shiny just goes poof and...”

“We don’t go anywhere. Don’t drop them. Got it.”

Dean left Charlie to the delicate work. He stood back up and looked out the window. Ships were still coming through the wormhole, but what had looked like a steady center of a whirlpool started to fluctuate in size. The circling flow of the gas clouds began to buckle with the turmoil of rough seas. 

“They’re still coming through and the ships are getting bigger,” Dean said. “Anyway to hurry this thing along?”

“Kevin thought they might also have a booster thing on their side, but an explosion within the wormhole should do it.” Charlie paused in removing the tubes and waved to the console behind him. “I think that station controls the guns.”

“Guns I can handle.”

Dean walked around and looked at the console. It had a screen that didn’t look much different than the space arcades he’d grown up playing. As a kid, he’d spent hours in front of those screens, shoving in quarters before picking the lock and jamming the same quarters back into the slots. It was one of the few things that had let him forget everything. 

He’d spent the entire day trying not to touch anything, but this looked familiar. The buttons around the screen were clearly labeled with numbered canons and gun turrets. He wasn’t sure what they shot out, but they could shoot rainbows for all he cared as long as they blew things up. Even the ships on the screen were color coded. The thing was practically idiot proof. He hoped. 

Another massive ship started to emerge from the storm that the wormhole had become. Dean looked down from the window to focus on the screen. 

He spaced over the target symbol until it was dead center on the ship. It took a couple of guesses before he hit a button that beeped. The screen flashed orange with an outline around the ship that he apparently had in a target lock. 

Dean hit a flashing red button. Outside the window, two canon mounts on the front of the station reared back. The missiles blasted through the space between them and the wormhole. 

He fired another set before the first ones impacted the ship. If there was one thing he’d learned from arcades, it was that it always took more than one shot to take out the big ships at the end of the level.

The explosion looked unimpressive at first then expanded into a bright flash. There wasn’t the smoke or continued burning that he was used to when he blew things up, but when the light was gone so was the ship. The center of the wormhole had also vanished, leaving only quickly dissipating clouds of gas. 

Charlie cheered. “Dude, that was at least a ten thousand point secret level shot.”

Dean couldn’t help but grin. Their wins didn’t generally feel like victories. Usually, he had to wonder if they’d really changed anything at all, but there it was loud and clear right outside the window. 

Charlie had all the tubes in the tray with the top snapped on. She set the disarmed cube down beside the tray while Dean took aim on another enemy ship. 

It was easy enough to see which ships were which, but there were too many smaller Earth ships trying to take down the big alien ones for Dean to get a clear shot on most of them. There was no way he was going to risk hitting some poor bastard fighting the good fight in one of those flying coffins.

“Anyway to call up Solo to tell Houston to clear out their ships?” Dean asked.

Charlie jogged over to one of the other consoles. Dean took out the ships he could while Charlie called the mother ship. Within a few minutes, more and more of the Earth ships fell back. 

“The crew sensors show a few hundred Klingons still aboard the station,” Charlie said. “I’ve locked down the routes we don’t need to get back to the ship and command sent along the access codes to self-destruct the station.”

“I though self-destruct buttons were just some sci-fi excuse for a big explosion. Seriously, who builds bombs into their own house?” 

Charlie looked a little guilty when she shrugged. “They have their uses.”

“Remind me not to make you mad.”

Dean keyed over to lock on another alien transport ship. He slammed the fire button for the right rear photon canons before he scrolled over further on the screen. This place was way too awesome to blow up, but he could get behind taking out hundreds of monsters in one go. 

“Okay, one more here.” Dean watched the canons rear back to launch the station’s last loaded torpedo. “Just make sure you set that thing with enough time for us to get the hell out of Dodge.”

Dean reloaded his gun and held the cube beneath his arm. It was far lighter than he’d expected. He bet that he could find a Made in China stamp mixed in with the engravings on the bottom. 

He left the angel mojo tubes for Charlie so that he could take up the front. He didn’t have to ask if she’d been successful cracking into the system’s self-destruct because alarms started blaring before she left the console. 

Red lights flashed as they sprinted down the hall. Dean kept looking over his shoulder and firing off stray shots. Some hit actual targets while others were only oddly shaped shadows cast by the strobing lights. He didn’t have time to sort them out, and the deafening siren made his ears ring, leaving no hope of hearing anything approaching. 

When they reached the docking bay, Dean guarded the tray of tubes while Charlie climbed up the ladder into the ship. He passed up the tray and cube before following her up. 

He never would have guessed that he’d be happy to be back inside this thing, but he relaxed back into the chair when the docking clamps released. The unease didn’t set back in until they were shooting away from the station back towards the moon.


	7. Chapter 7

Dean probably would have collapsed onto the floor at the bottom of the docking ladder if Sam hadn’t been there to catch him. He still might have dropped to his knees to kiss the ground if he hadn’t first remember that they were still floating in space. 

At least this ship was far too big for Charlie’s barrel roll stunts. Apparently any inhibition she’d had about her flying abilities had vanished with post-battle adrenaline. Dean had only been able to hang on while she’d gotten her jollies picking off stray enemy fighters. 

Sam leaned back far enough to look Dean in the eyes. “Have you been drinking?”

“Not nearly enough.” Dean waved towards Charlie. “Remind me never to let her drive the Impala.”

Charlie was practically bouncing with a giant smile plastered over her face. “What did I tell you guys? Best day ever! I mean, seriously, can you believe we just took down an entire alien fleet? We are so awesome!”

Dean’s heart still pounded in his chest, but he couldn’t argue that they had kicked some serious alien ass. While he could’ve done without the Space Mountain ride from hell, he wouldn’t trade the rest for anything. 

“For the record, you got your gunfight and then some.” Dean shifted his attention to Sam. “And, yeah, I know. You’re pissed. How about you just slug me and get it over with?”

“I’ll take a rain check.” Sam clapped his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Come on, you have to hear this.”

Dean shot his brother a wary look. Sam didn’t look mad. He almost looked on the edge of smiling, which bordered on scary considering the response Dean had expected. He started to wonder if their anti-possession tattoos actually worked here.

Despite the fact that he may be walking to his doom, Dean didn’t have any choice aside from grabbing the cube and following Sam to the bridge. Charlie hurried along after them while somehow managing not to jostle the tubes. 

The doors to the bridge whisked open. On the other side, Kevin stood in front of the windows with his arms crossed over his chest, looking like a proud captain. He was also smiling. 

Dean was seriously starting to consider a possession scenario. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen the Kevin look anything but depressed. Dean barely recognized the kid with the pride beaming on his face. 

Outside the ship, the battle continued between the small fighters, but more and more of them were their ships. The radio crackled and the voice from Houston came over the speakers. Unlike every other time Dean had heard the man, there was excitement in his voice.

“That’s an affirmative, Beta Station. All interstellar class enemy ships are confirmed destroyed. We can take it from here.”

Dean had trouble making out the man’s exact words over the roaring interference in the background. It sounded like the guy was calling in from a baseball game after the batter had just hit a home run. 

“What’s all that noise?” Dean asked. 

“It’s cheering, Dean.” Sam’s hand clasped onto Dean’s shoulder. “You just saved the world.”

Dean opened his mouth to say something, but shut it a moment later. He didn’t know what to say. 

They’d saved the world before. Every time it had sucked ass. They’d gone all in and come out with nothing. He always felt like crap afterwards. Things only ever seemed worse and no one outside of a few people, half of which were usually pissed, ever seemed to notice. 

This time they did. It shouldn’t matter. He’d never fought a single fight for glory or recognition. It wasn’t about that. The only problem was that he’d nearly forgotten what it was about. 

Charlie nudged him with her shoulder. “See? I told you that you save people.”

“Yeah, guess so.” Dean cleared his throat. “Of course, we couldn’t have done it without the captain. Thanks for not letting us strand ourselves here, Kev.”

“We’re not back yet.”

“There’s the Kevin we know and love.” Dean chuckled. “You’ll get us there. You kids can work on that one while I change into something that doesn’t smell like Klingon ass.” 

Dean set the cube on the table and left the geeks to their plotting. He unbuttoned the uniform on his way back to the makeshift changing room. His clothes still lay over a star map on what was probably a war room table. 

He pulled out the collar of the t-shirt he’d been wearing beneath the scratchy uniform and took a whiff. Even that smelled like Klingon. He couldn’t wait to get back to his shower. 

Even after he pulled on his jacket, Dean stayed standing in the small room. He looked over the world map drawn with countries he didn’t recognized. Mostly, he listened to his brother and the other two kids who should also both be in college. 

He still didn’t get why Sam or Kevin wanted to be there, or doing anything other than what they were doing right now. They were both far smarter than any bookworm college kid he’d ever stopped some monster from eating. 

It wasn’t something he had to get. He only had to figure out how to get them there if that was what they still wanted when this was all over and done. It felt weird even thinking that someday it could be over. Not for him, that wasn’t what he wanted, but for Sam. 

He’d always known that the end would come with one them chocking on their own blood. That should have happened today. Instead, there was a planet full of people celebrating and they were going back to their world in once piece. 

By the time he rejoined the others, they were slotting capsules back into the cube. Dean ran his hand over his hair and creased his brow as he watched them. 

“If you guys fire that thing back up, isn’t that hell portal just gonna pop open again?”

“It’s not that easy,” Kevin said. “And this shouldn’t be set to do anything right now aside from put out enough power to get us back. Home base already has someone on the way to pick it up. We should be good.”

Sam flipped open the book to a page that was now rumpled from continual reading. “We’re just going to need a strong focal point to make sure we end up back on our Earth.” 

“I got that covered,” Dean said. 

Dean pulled out the demon blade. He wiped it clean on his jeans then pulled up his jacket to slice his arm a few inches below the dry smeared blood of the last cut. Sam leaned in and tipped the book so Dean could copy the symbol onto the table in front of them.

“You’re sure you got this?” Sam asked.

“Yep. We’re golden.”

Dean closed his eyes, concentrating as Sam read the words. For a brief moment, it felt as if he were back in that fighter with Charlie, spinning through space. Then everything went dark. 

When Dean came to, he was sprawled over a tile floor. An actual floor. Dean wasn’t in a hurry to get up. He didn’t even sit until he felt someone tugging on him. He batted Sam’s hand away and scooted back to prop himself up against the counter.

“Seriously, Dean? The shower room?”

Dean smirked up at his brother, smiling all the wider when he saw his robe waiting for him on the hook. “Damn right the shower room.”

He stumbled to his feet, gripping the edge of the counter while he waited for the wave of dizziness to pass. When the ground was again steady, he walked over to grab his shampoo bottle. It was still empty and sitting upside down beside Sam’s. 

“Can you at least wait until the rest of us get out of here?” Sam asked. 

“Just checking.”

“We just got back from outer space and you’re checking whether or not you need to buy shampoo?”

“No, I know I need to buy shampoo. That’s the point. Just making sure this is really our shower room. One space adventure was awesome, but I’m not ready to go sliding around the universes full time.”

“Do you think we could actually do that?” Charlie asked. 

Her voice was far too excited at the idea. Dean made a note to hide that book as far away from Charlie as possible. He shook his head as she followed Kevin out into the hall, grilling him on exactly how much angel grace she would need. 

Dean looked into the mirror when he heard Sam come up behind him. Sam didn’t look any less exhausted than he had this morning, but the heavy weight that had been in his eyes was gone. Dean stared back at his brother’s reflection, trying to decipher his expression.

“What?” Dean asked. 

“You’re still smiling.”

Dean shifted his gaze to his own reflection. He hadn’t even realized that he was smiling. Usually, he avoided looking at himself aside from shaving and making sure he hadn’t missed cleaning up any blood, but for once, he didn’t mind what he saw there. 

It wasn’t just that they’d won. He knew they could do that. The question was only ever how much it would cost. It almost felt like cheating walking away from an endgame with both their lives and souls intact. He could get used to it. 

“We just ended an intergalactic war, Sammy. Maybe we actually got a shot at stopping this one, too.”


End file.
